Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms NEXT Character Analysis In the 1970s and 80s, critics Judith Fetterly and Millicent Bell argued that the character of Catherine in A Farewell to Arms helps prove that Ernest Hemingway was sexist and a misogynist: in short, that he hated women and that the character of Catherine proves it. Later female critics, most notably, Sandra Whipple Spanier, argue the opposite – that Catherine helps prove that Hemingway loved women and understood them deeply, and that Catherine is even the real hero of the story. Fetterly's claim is that Catherine’s death at the end of the novel proves that Hemingway thought that "the only good woman is a dead woman." We find this a bit of a stretch. Women die all the time in books, and that doesn’t make their authors women-haters. And way more men die in the novel than women. Does that make Hemingway a man-hater, too? Now Bell’s argument is a bit more interesting. She claims that Catherine is "a sort of inflatable woman only available to the onanistic dreamer." An onanist is, in plain language, a masturbator.

Bell is arguing that there is no "real" Catherine. That the most real she gets is when Frederic is dreaming about her or imagining her. According to views like these, Catherine is just a blow up doll with nothing inside her but Frederic’s fantasy. Maybe there is something to that, but we take a kinder view toward Catherine, as do other critics. To think that Catherine is just Frederic’s fantasy dehumanizes her, makes all the good she did mean nothing, and makes the tragedy of the novel a mere joke. But, these criticisms don’t just come out of thin air. And before we know what we really think, we must examine Catherine more closely. So here goes… Two Sides of Catherine In Catherine’s defense, she is much more than the novel’s love interest. She’s a brave woman, as Frederic says to her so many times. She’s traveled to a foreign country to help take care of wounded men. She tells Frederic that her initial move to Italy was out of solidarity for her dead fiancé, but that doesn’t change the fact that she works tirelessly throughout most of the novel, and most of her pregnancy, tending to the men wounded in the war.

She is fiercely independent and can take care of herself in foreign countries, with or without Frederic. So why do some critics think this beautiful and brave nurse is merely a male fantasy? Why do they think she’s not her own person and that she gives up her own identity to get Frederic to love her? Um, maybe because she kind of tells Frederic stuff like that all the time. Here are a few examples: On religion: "You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve got" (19.37). On her pregnancy: "I’ll try and not make trouble for you. I know I’ve made trouble now. But haven’t I always been a good girl until now?" (21.68). On her self: "There isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me." (18.21-21) Whew. Catherine really is what those critics say! She totally worships Frederic like a god and will do anything to get him. She thinks her pregnancy is "trouble" because it isn’t part of Frederic’s fantasy of her. And she admits she’s not "real," but rather just a part of Frederic.

But, wait a minute. At one point early in the text, Helen Ferguson tells Rinaldi, "You mustn’t take everything so literally." We think Helen’s advice can help us view Catherine in a more humanizing light. First of all, Catherine is extremely romantic, she loves being in love, and she does want to please Frederic. She’s also desperately lonely when she meets him. She really does want to be "one" with him. She wants a special love, and she wants it more intensely because she sees gloom and doom all around her. As we mentioned, critic Sandra Whipple Spanier argues that Catherine is the hero of the novel, that her willingness to love Frederic entirely is heroic because it saves her from going crazy with grief. When everything is exploding all around you, everything takes on more urgency. It’s normal that she feels so intensely for Frederic, and that she thinks of unusual and even poetic ways to express this love. And she doesn’t fall apart without him when they are separated, but just keeps on trucking and hoping. She doesn’t need Frederic for anything but love. And so what if she goes a little overboard. Isn’t she entitled?

Who are we to dictate how another person should love? Marry me. Don’t marry me. Marry me. Don’t marry me… And there is even more evidence that Catherine is a complex women who thinks for herself. And if that’s a male fantasy, so what? As long as it’s good for her, why should we complain? Her complexity is probably a big part of what attracts Frederic to her in the first place. He doesn’t want a blow-up doll. Catherine’s views on marriage are one good example of this complexity. They demonstrate her conflict between not following the social norms she doesn’t care about, and conforming to such norms because doing so makes life easier. When Frederic first meets her she laments that she didn’t marry her fiancé before he died. She says that they were engaged for "eight years," and that they "grew up together." She tells Frederic she didn’t marry her fiancé because she "thought it would be bad for him," that it would trap him. And Frederic tells us that he and Catherine "told each other [they] were married the first day she had come to the hospital" (19.15).

Frederic does want to be married but Catherine thinks this would keep them from being together during the war. When he pressures her, she says, "We’re really married. I couldn’t be any more married." She keeps up this attitude until near the end of her pregnancy, when she says, "I suppose if we have this child, we should really get married" (38.17). Frederic says, "Let’s get married now" (38.18). But Catherine says no, no let’s wait until I’m nice and skinny again after the baby’s born. She wants the commitment of marriage, but is very suspicious of it as an institution. This aspect of Catherine shows that she if she is a male fantasy, she’s a pretty good one – she has her own thoughts and opinions about things and isn’t afraid to share them. And now that we have a better idea of Catherine, let’s look a bit deeper and see what she means to the novel as a whole. "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall" Sorry, Bob Dylan, but your lyrics are just so handy. Rain is important to the novel, and especially to Catherine. It rains practically the whole time. Part of this is historical accuracy.

It really did rain that much. And Hemingway ingeniously weaves this historical detail in to the narrative. But, what we want to know is, why is Catherine so afraid of the rain? Isn’t rain a symbol of rebirth and springtime, and cozy lovers snuggling, and all that jazz? Yes, but when a war is on, even the simplest symbol is turned on its head. In this novel, rain most often means gloom and loss and pain and destruction. Lucky for us, Frederic wants to know why Catherine is afraid of the rain too. When he presses her on the point, she finally gives her reasons: "It’s very hard on loving" (19.123). "I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it" (19.137). "And sometimes I see you dead in it" (19.139). Thanks, Catherine. That clears everything up. Why would rain be hard on loving? Why would she see them dead in it? There are many possible answers, but we’ve developed a pretty simple one that we hope you enjoy. Let’s take it step by step.

Catherine’s job is to take care of people who’ve been wounded on the battlefield, and lots of those people die. And since it’s raining all the time now, which has made the men more vulnerable to injury on the battlefield, her association with rain and death seems pretty natural.But it gets better, er, worse actually. Shmoop had a hunch and so did a little research for you. In Chapter Four, we learn that Catherine’s fiancé died during the Battle of the Somme, or the Somme Offensive. This was one of the largest battles in World War I , producing at least a million casualties. The battle lasted from July 1, 1916 to November 18, 1916, and, for much of that time, the weather was, yes, rainy. So it’s highly likely that Catherine’s fiancé died in the rain. This explains why she thinks rain is hard on loving, and why she’s sees herself and Frederic dead in it. She’s afraid that the rain is a portent of the death of any love she might find.Of course, unlike her fiancé and others soldiers killed during the war, the rain has nothing to do with Catherine’s death.

But, like those other deaths, hers can be seen as senseless, unfair, and cruel. As we discuss in "What’s Up With the Title," Catherine’s death during childbirth is meant to parallel the deaths of the soldiers in battle. Like the soldiers who stood brave in the face of battle, Catherine stood brave in the face of a battle with her own body. Like the soldiers, neither her bravery, nor Frederic’s love (see his "Character Analysis" for more), could save her from death. In Frederic’s mind, the death of the soldiers and the death of Catherine are parallel tragedies, which can’t be separated from each other. By weaving the tragedies together, he memorializes both such tragedies, and can perhaps hope to heal a little bit of his pain. Catherine Barkley Timeline SparkNotes: A Farewell to Arms: Character List A Farewell to Arms Plot Overview Analysis of Major Characters Lieutenant Frederic Henry - The novel’s narrator and protagonist. A young American ambulance driver in the Italian army during World War I, Henry meets his military duties with quiet stoicism. He displays courage in battle, but his selfless motivations undermine all sense of glory and heroism, abstract terms for which Henry has little patience.

His life lacks real passion until he meets the beautiful Catherine Barkley. Catherine Barkley - An English nurse’s aide who falls in love with Henry. Catherine is exceptionally beautiful and possesses, perhaps, the most sensuously described hair in all of literature. When the novel opens, Catherine’s grief for her dead fiancé launches her headlong into a playful, though reckless, game of seduction. Her feelings for Henry soon intensify and become more complicated, however, and she eventually swears lifelong fidelity to him. Read an in-depth analysis of Catherine Barkley. Rinaldi - A surgeon in the Italian army. Mischievous, wry, and oversexed, Rinaldi is Henry’s closest friend. Although Rinaldi is a skilled doctor, his primary practice is seducing beautiful women. When Henry returns to Gorizia, Rinaldi tries to whip up a convivial atmosphere. Read an in-depth analysis of Rinaldi. The priest - A kind, sweet, young man who provides spiritual guidance to the few soldiers interested in it. Often the butt of the officers’ jokes, the priest responds with good-natured understanding.

Through Henry’s conversations with him regarding the war, the novel challenges abstract ideals like glory, honor, and sacredness. Helen Ferguson - A nurse’s aide who works at the American hospital and a dear friend of Catherine. Though Helen is friendly and accepting of Henry and Rinaldi’s visits to Catherine early in the novel, her hysterical outburst over Henry and Catherine’s “immoral” affair establishes her as an unhappy woman who is paranoid about her friend’s safety and anxious about her own loneliness. Miss Gage - An American nurse who helps Henry through his recovery at the hospital in Milan. At ease and accepting, Miss Gage becomes a friend to Henry, someone with whom he can share a drink and gossip. Miss Van Campen - The superintendent of nurses at the American hospital in which Catherine works. Miss Van Campen is strict, cold, and unpleasant. She disapproves of Henry and remains on cool terms with him throughout his stay. Dr. Valentini - An Italian surgeon who comes to the American hospital to contradict the hospital’s opinion that Henry must wait six months before having an operation on his leg. In agreeing to perform surgery the next morning, Dr.

Valentini displays the kind of self-assurance and confidence that Henry (and the novel) celebrates. Count Greffi - A spry, ninety-four-year-old nobleman. The count represents a more mature version of Henry’s character and Hemingway’s masculine ideal. He lives life to the fullest and thinks for himself. Though the count dismisses the label “wise,” Henry clearly values his thoughts and sees him as a sort of father figure. Ettore Moretti - An American soldier from San Francisco. Ettore, like Henry, fights for the Italian army. Unlike Henry, however, Ettore is an obnoxious braggart. Quick to instigate a fight or display the medals that he claims to have worked so hard to win, he believes in and pursues the glory and honor that Henry eschews. Gino - A young Italian whom Henry meets at a decimated village. Gino’s patriotic belief that his fatherland is sacred and should be protected at all costs contrasts sharply to Henry’s attitude toward war. Ralph Simmons - An opera student of dubious talent. Simmons is the first person that Henry goes to see after fleeing from battle.

Simmons proves to be a generous friend, giving Henry civilian clothes so that he can travel to Switzerland without drawing suspicion. Emilio - A bartender in the town of Stresa. Emilio proves a good friend to Henry and Catherine, helping them reunite, saving them from arrest, and ushering them off to safety. Bonello - An ambulance driver under Henry’s command. Bonello displays his ruthlessness when he brutally unloads a pistol round into the head of an uncooperative engineer whom Henry has already shot. More Help A Farewell to Arms Characters | GradeSaver Buy Study Guide Lieutenant Frederic Henry The protagonist and fairly aloof narrator, Henry is a young American ambulance driver with the Italian army. However, he does not feel strongly about the cause, and certainly is not out for glory. He turns from the horrors of war to a passionate, escapist love affair with Catherine Barkley, and the all-consuming love helps distract him from the brutality around him.

Still, he is good at his job; a cool-headed, unselfish man who exercises grace under pressure when he is injured and when he must shoot a deserting engineering officer, Henry fulfills the code of the "Hemingway hero." He makes his "separate peace" when he decides that he no longer has any obligation to the army and that his loyalty is to Catherine. Catherine Barkley A British Voluntary Aid Detachment (a second-tier nurse), Catherine is in grief over her fiancé's recent death at the start of the novel. Henry offers a tempting rebound, and she dives into this new diverting love. She later admits that she was slightly "crazy" when she first met Henry, and her behavior backs this up: she gives herself so readily to a near stranger, and her games of flirtation and teasing border on the juvenile. However, she gains some measure of independence later on, as when she helps Henry row the boat across the lake for their escape, but she is typically submissive and eager to please with Henry (thought, to her credit, so is he with her). Like Henry, she believes the world is out to destroy people's happiness.

Lieutenant Rinaldi Henry's Italian surgeon roommate, Rinaldi is an alcoholic womanizer who does not believe in romance and love as Henry does. Instead, he proclaims himself in love with nearly every woman he meets, then quickly discards the idea as he finds the next one. He appears to have something of a crush on Henry, or at least engages in what literary criticism refers to as a "homosocial relationship," a bond between men that borders on homoeroticism. Priest The unnamed priest in Henry's unit is the butt of all jokes by the others, but Henry, though he is not religious, treats him kindly. They have several deep discussions, and the priest encourages Henry to find love and be happy. Helen Ferguson A Scottish nurse, Helen is Catherine's best female friend in the war. She is also friends with Henry at first, but later grows jealous of his and Catherine's relationship and fears Catherine will abandon her. Bonello An Italian ambulance driver, Bonello happily kills off the engineering sergeant that Henry shoots. Bonello, like his fellow drivers, does not believe in the cause of the war, and he leaves the group during the Italian retreat to become a prisoner.

Ettore Moretti An Italian-American soldier in the Italian army, Ettore boasts of his medals and rank while insulting others. In this regard, he is the opposite of Henry, who does not care at all about personal glory. Dr. Valentini A brash, fast-talking doctor who successfully operates on Henry's knee, Dr. Valentini is a good example of the masculine Hemingway hero, especially in comparison to the effete, incompetent doctors who first diagnose Henry. Aymo Character List Character List Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Frederic Henry An American second-lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian army during World War I. Catherine Barkley A British nurse who falls in love with Henry following the death of her fiancé in battle. The Priest The chaplain in Henry's unit. Baited by the other officers, he is befriended by Henry, to whom he offers spiritual advice. Rinaldi Henry's roommate and friend, an Italian lieutenant and surgeon. Helen Ferguson Catherine's friend and fellow nurse. Passini and Bonello Ambulance drivers serving under Henry. Manera, Gavuzzi, Gordini, Piani, and Aymo Other ambulance drivers. Mrs.

Walker An American nurse at the hospital in Milan. Miss Gage Another American nurse, sympathetic to Henry and Catherine's affair. Miss Van Campen The hostile superintendent of nurses. Dr. Valentini A highly competent Italian surgeon, full of joie de vivre. Meyers A somewhat sinister American expatriate. Ettore Moretti An Italian-American from San Francisco serving with distinction in the Italian army. Ralph Simmons An American student of opera and a friend to Henry. Count Greffi An aging but vigorous Italian who befriends Henry in Stresa and serves as a mentor to him. A Farewell to Arms Reviews & Ratings - IMDb IMDb 45 out of 53 people found the following review useful: Simply sublime. from Canberra, Australia 20 June 1999 This is a magnificent picture, photographed sublimely by Charles Lang (who deservedly won an Oscar). Cooper and Hayes are brilliant as the World War One lovers - and the ending will bring you to tears. How wonderful to see Coop so vulnerable and so in love, and Hayes just shines from the screen like a diamond. This film is very under-rated.

The camerawork is ground-breaking and original - look for the shot when Hayes kisses Cooper as he is wheeled into his hospital room. Amazing. I really love this film. Was the above review useful to you? 33 out of 38 people found the following review useful: All's Fair in Love and War from Kissimmee, Florida 4 June 2004 A FAREWELL TO ARMS (Paramount, 1932), directed by Frank Borzage, is the first, so far, of three screen adaptations to Ernest Hemingway's classic 1930 novel.

It is a tender love story set against the background of the Great War (World War I) involving two young people, Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper), an American lieutenant and ambulance driver in the Italian unit, and Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), a war nurse, who are kept apart by Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), Frederic's Italian friend, who not only loves Catherine, but doesn't want him to "lose his head over a woman." In the supporting cast are Mary Phillips (Helen Ferguson, a nurse and Catherine closest friend who objects to her continued romance with the young American); Jack LaRue (the soft-spoken Italian priest); and Blanche Frederici (the stern head nurse). Adolphe Menjou offers fine characterization of an Italian, convincing, right down to his spoken dialect. A highly popular war drama in its day, which concentrates more on the relationship between a lieutenant and a nurse than soldiers on the battlefield, A FAREWELL TO ARMS earned itself an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture of 1932-33, but none for its acting.

Director Borzage brings out the tenderness and simplicity of the young couple in love as he had done many times during his career, especially those starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell over at Fox Studios. In fact, had Hemingway sold his novel to Fox, A FAREWELL TO ARMS would definitely have been awarded to the popular Gaynor and Farrell team under Borzage's direction. Yet similarities between Gaynor and Farrell and Hayes and Cooper go by the way of their sizes. Both Gaynor and Hayes were short in appearance while Cooper and Farrell stood very tall, especially opposite their shorter leading ladies. Because of the sensitivity and care as enacted by the central characters, it goes without saying that Hayes and Cooper appear to be far better suited than Gaynor and Farrell had they been offered this assignment. At first glance, Cooper gives the impression of being an odd choice for playing Fredric Henry, considering solid actors as Fredric March or Clark Gable (on loan from MGM) might have made a go of this. For the finished product, the film conveys Cooper to be properly cast after all, ranking this as one of his most finer performances of his career.

The pace to the story is occasionally slow, with the early portions lacking in underscoring, but does get better during its second half. Other than the character study and battle scenes, the movie offers some fine bonuses in ways of effective camera technique, including the hospital scene where the injured Frederic Henry is being wheeled in the hospital from a platform table where the camera assumes the place of the character, taking focus as to what directly looking down and talking into the camera range as Frederic answers the questions. This is concluded with an extreme close up of Catherine's face with only her right eye in full focus into the camera as she kisses and talks to her wounded soldier. The camera taking the place of the character technique would be used memorably more than a decade later in the "film noir" mysteries, LADY IN THE LAKE (MGM, 1946) and DARK PASSAGE (WB, 1947). While these films have used this method to an extent to most of the story, A FAREWELL TO ARMS presents this technique briefly but effectively.

Remade twice during the 1950s, first as FORCE OF ARMS (Warner Brothers, 1950) starring William Holden and Nancy Olson, and later under its original title in 1957 for 20th Century-Fox starring Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson, the third, being the better known of the earlier two, might have surpassed the original had it not been so awkward, overlong (two and-a-half hours) and overblown. The original 1932 production, eliminating many key elements from the novel, is better acted and not long enough to cause any viewer lose interest. Because of the remakes in the 1950s, the 1932 original was taken out of circulation, with availability for viewing the original very hard to obtain, and chances of it never to be seen or heard about again. Fortunately, prints did survive, leaving chances of A FAREWELL TO ARMS to surface again. Finally, as early as 1981, the initial version to A FAREWELL TO ARMS made its long awaited rebirth, on public television, initially as part of its weekly SPROCKETS series.

Ever since then, television and later public domain video prints presented the original Hemingway drama 10 minutes shorter to its original 90 minutes of screen time, along with occasional poor picture quality, and even worse, the elimination of the original opening and closing credits taken from reissue prints with newer opening title cards and the substitution of the Paramount logo with that of a 1950s Warner Brothers shield, and the elimination of the closing casting credits. When A FAREWELL TO ARMS premiered on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday, February 15, 2004, as part of the cable channel's annual 31 days of Oscar, it became another long-awaited event. Aside from having it shown in its original 90 minute presentation, the Paramount logo that opens and closes the movie has been restored along with the closing cast list, as originally played in theaters back in 1932. Has A FAREWELL TO ARMS stood the test of time? Chances are with its newly restored and clearer picture quality presentation currently available on TCM, it may stir up much more interest than the latter remakes.

It also gives an incite look to the early film career of famous stage actress Helen Hayes (1900-1993) at her peak. As it stands, A FAREWELL TO ARMS, a poignant love story, which may not stir up as many tears and sobs as it once did way back when, it is, however, a worthy novel to screen offering, ranking this the first, and best, of two remakes combined. (****) Was the above review useful to you? 27 out of 30 people found the following review useful: What Did Papa Expect? from Buffalo, New York 29 August 2006 When this version of A Farewell to Arms came out, Ernest Hemingway hated this film. They turned his novel and put too much emphasis on the romance angle. When Papa Hemingway said that he obviously did not know Hollywood well at all. If he did just knowing Frank Borzage directed this film should have told him something. Borzage did a whole slew of tender romantic stories in the Thirties like Three Comrades, The Mortal Storm, stuff like that. A Farewell to Arms is definitely in keeping with that tradition.

The one thing that Hemingway did like was the casting of Gary Cooper as the hero Fredric Henry. He and Coop became fast friends right up to when they both died in 1961. He saw in Cooper the ideal Hemingway hero and when Paramount acquired the rights to For Whom the Bells Toll, Hemingway insisted it be done with Cooper or nobody. Cooper and Helen Hayes made a tender romantic couple in the Borzage tradition, probably more Borzage than Hemingway. But Adolph Zukor and Paramount also knew what sold movie tickets and Paramount was having a lot of financial troubles at this time. The studio nearly went under during the Depression. But Paramount's saviors turned out to be Bing Crosby, Mae West, and Cecil B. DeMille who returned to the studio he helped found. Helen Hayes made several good films in the early thirties, this one and the one she won an Oscar for, The Sins of Madelon Claudet. But she never became a movie box office draw so she returned to the Broadway stage where she reigned as a Queen. Adolphe Menjou replete with Italian accent plays Cooper's friend and romantic rival, Major Rinaldi.

Menjou was great at playing both American and continental types. Soon he would sign a long term contract with MGM and gain his greatest roles during the sound era. Hemingway purists might shun A Farewell to Arms, but those who love their screen romances, soggier the better will rave about this film. Was the above review useful to you? 25 out of 30 people found the following review useful: Impressionism in the Cinema from Tunbridge Wells, England 24 January 2006 The works of Ernest Hemingway have not always translated well to the cinema. The Gary Cooper/Ingrid Bergman "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and David O. Selznick's version of "A Farewell to Arms", although attractively photographed, are two of the dullest and most slow-moving films ever committed to celluloid. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is slightly better, but still by no means as good as it should be, given its stellar cast. Howard Hawks's version of "To Have and Have Not" is a good film, but that is probably because its plot has very little to do with that of the novel on which it is supposedly based.

The 1932 version of "A Farewell to Arms" was the first time a film had been based on one of Hemingway's works, and there is an obvious difference between it and the 1957 remake; it is only slightly more than half the length, at 80 minutes as opposed to 152. Over the quarter-century between the dates of the two films there had been a change in the way Hemingway was seen. In 1932 he was still an up-and-coming young author; by 1957, although he was still alive and only in his late fifties, he had achieved the status of Great American Novelist, and the film that was made in that year suffers from an over-reverential attitude to his work, treating it like a solemn classical text that needed an equally solemn cinematic treatment to do it justice. The film tells the story of the romance between Frederick, an American volunteer serving with the Italian Army as an ambulance driver, and Catherine, a nurse with the British Red Cross. Frederick deserts and crosses the border into neutral Switzerland, to be with Catherine, whom he has secretly married and who is pregnant.

It has been pointed out that the moral of the film is precisely the opposite of that of "Casablanca". In that film Rick and Ilsa give up their chance of happiness together because "the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world". What matters is the war, and the Allied struggle for victory. In "A Farewell to Arms", however, the moral is that the personal happiness of Frederick and Catherine matters more than the great historical events from which they are escaping. This reversal in emphasis between the two films probably reflects a reversal in public attitudes which took place in the intervening decade between 1932 and 1942. In 1932, a year before Hitler came to power, there was a sense of disillusionment with war, even in those countries which had finished on the winning side in 1914-18; the First World War was widely seen as senseless slaughter. Ten years later, the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of the Second World War had changed attitudes so that it was once again fashionable to talk about a "just war" against evil.

(By 1957, during the Cold War, the pendulum had partially swung back in the opposite direction; Selznick's film might have been a flop, but there were some very good anti-war films from that period, such as Kubrick's "Paths of Glory"). Seen from a modern perspective, the film looks and sounds very dated. The sound quality is poor and the action looks jerky. These problems were, of course, common to most films from the early thirties, the very dawn of the sound picture era. (It is remarkable how quickly those problems were overcome, when one compares the likes of "A Farewell to Arms" with, say, "Gone with the Wind" from only seven years later). In some respects, however, the director Frank Borzage was able to turn the technical limitations of the period to his advantage. Large-scale realistic battle sequences would not have been possible at this time, but Borzage nevertheless wanted to give some idea of the horror of war in order to show what Frederick is fleeing from. In order to do this he resorts to a wordless montage sequence composed of brief shots of the battle, backed by some highly dramatic music.

The result is a sort of cinematic equivalent of Impressionism, serving to give as vivid an impression of warfare as a more detailed picture ever could. (This sequence was probably the reason the film won the Oscar for "Best Cinematography"). The film is better acted than the 1957 remake. Helen Hayes was less glamorous than Jennifer Jones, and has an even less convincing British accent, but makes a much livelier and more convincing Catherine. Gary Cooper's Frederick is similarly far more animated than Rock Hudson's stony-faced interpretation of the role, and he receives good support from Adolphe Menjou as Frederick's comrade Major Rinaldi. The action is better paced and the film, even if it looks primitive by today's standards, nevertheless has a vigour lacking from many more polished films from more recent times. 7/10 Was the above review useful to you?

22 out of 29 people found the following review useful: A Memorable Film In Need of Restoration from Biloxi, Mississippi 28 March 2005 The 1932 film version of Ernest Hemmingway's A FAREWELL TO ARMS will never challenge the likes of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT--but while it fails to capture the horrors of World War I it is remarkably effective at capturing the novel's sparse and unyielding prose. A good deal of the credit goes to writers Garrett and Glaizer and director Borzage--but the real interest here is not so much in the cinematic interpretation of the Hemmingway novel as it is in the cast, which is remarkable. Actress Helen Hayes was already among the leading lights of the New York stage when she was lured to Hollywood for a handful of films in the early 1930s--and it is easy to see what all the fuss was about. Plaintive beauty aside, unlike most stage and screen actors of the era she is completely unaffected in her performance and proves more than powerful enough to overcome the more melodramatic moments of the script.

She is costarred with Gary Cooper in one of his earliest leading roles, and while the pairing is unexpected, it is also unexpectedly good: they have tremendous screen chemistry, and in spite of the film's dated approach they easily draw you into this story of an ill-fated wartime romance between a nurse and an ambulance driver. The film is also well supplied with a solid supporting cast that includes Adolphe Menjou, Jack La Rue, and Mary Philips, and while clearly filmed on a slim budget--something most obvious in the battlefront sequences--the camera work is remarkably good. Unfortunately, all this counts for nothing unless you can find a print of the film that you can stand to watch. It is sad but true: the 1932 A FAREWELL TO ARMS seems to have fallen into public domain, and the result is a host of DVD and VHS releases that range from the merely adequate to the incredibly dire. Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer Was the above review useful to you? 16 out of 22 people found the following review useful: A gesture...a look...the inflection in a voice...

from Louisville, Kentucky 16 February 2003 A gesture...a look...the inflection in a voice. An ambulance going up a mountain... a dead soldier...rain pouring down. "Farewell to Arms" evokes emotions without being overly dramatic. It is based based on the Ernest Hemingway novel with the same title. It sets the scene for the story with images from the camera. Make no mistake, this is a love story, not a war movie. It is a love story set in the midst of World War I and it takes place in Italy and Switzerland. Not only do the images set the scene for this film but the actors make a love story unfold in the midst of the terrible taking place. Helen Hayes is a stand out in her role as the nurse from Great Britain. Gary Cooper has never been more handsome and charming as an American Ambulance driver. Their romance and struggle to be together are poignant and convincing. Gary Cooper has a marvelous friendship with a doctor played by Adolphe Menjou and some touching scenes with a priest portrayed by Jack Larue.

Time has been kind to this movie which goes beyond era and place and develops its characters and story well enough so that they transcend the 1932 style of making films and the WWI setting to shine in a classic movie for any age. This movie was directed by Frank Bozarge and it won a well deserved Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Was the above review useful to you?

10 out of 13 people found the following review useful: The Great War and the devotion of two people from Finland 3 May 2007 There's World War I going and Lieutenant Frederick Henry is fighting for his life.The war becomes secondary when he meets and falls in love with nurse Catherine Barkley.Having big emotions for another person during the war is dangerous since there's the chance of losing that person.They're both afraid.He may not admit that, but they're both afraid.Frank Borzage's A Farewell to Arms (1932) is based on Ernest Hemingway's novel.It won two Academy Awards from best cinematography (Charles Lang) and best sound, recording (Franklin Hansen).It would have deserved awards for acting, as well.The charismatic Gary Cooper and the admirable Helen Hayes do a fantastic job as the leading couple.Then there's also the great Adolphe Menjou as Major Rinaldi.The dialogue is brilliant.Lots of lovely words are spoken about love.I know there are many people who would say a movie from 75 years back is too old for them.I'd say that's their lost.A Farewell to Arms offers great feelings from the first meeting till the tragic ending.

Was the above review useful to you? 5 out of 7 people found the following review useful: A good war/romance movie Author: perfectbond 4 January 2003 A Farewell to Arms features the expected good performances from Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes, and Adolphe Menjou. For its time, it also features impressive sets. The dialogue also does justice to its source material, the Hemingway novel of the same name. This movie must've been appreciated much more at the time of its release, given the imminence of war sentiment and Hitler's rising power in Germany. All in all, a very good, though not great film, 7/10. Was the above review useful to you? 10 out of 17 people found the following review useful: Gary Cooper...what a dish!!! from United States 22 July 2001 Watch for some James Dean look-alike glances in this black and white movie. It also plays a lot like "The English Patient", but not as boring. The continual bombings and chaos of the fighting was very realistic, but it didn't move the plot along as well as it might have.

Helen Hayes as the love interest does a delightful job, but it's hard not to judge this picture by the technical improvements of today's cinematographers. I too have either outgrown Hemingway, or a lot of his dialogue was cut. I suggest you go back and give the book a read, and decide for yourself. I have promised to return and see the movie again, afterwards. Gary Cooper was a really great-looking, and good acting guy.....and I've never appreciated him before so much. He had a lot of stage business that made him appear quite natural. Adolph Menjou as the fun-loving captain did an admirable job, as well. Was the above review useful to you?

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful: The First Hemingway Novel Brought to the Silver Screen from Rhode Island, United States 21 May 2014 *** This review may contain spoilers *** The opening narrative: "Disaster as well as victory is written for every nation on the record of the World War, but high on the rolls of glory two names are inscribed  the Marne and the Piave." Of course, the Marne refers to the Western front, and the Piave refers to the Italian, wherein lies this movie's focus. "A Farewell to Arms" is based upon the semi-autobiographical novel of Ernest Hemingway's experiences when he served as an ambulance driver for the Italians who fought the Austrians and Hungarians in World War I. In the opening sequence we see a dead soldier draped with the Alpine background. Then we observe several Italian ambulances moving along the winding mountains away from the battlefield. Our hero Lt. ("Tenente" in Italian) Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper) casually reports to Headquarters just as young and attractive English nurse Molly is being rebuked and dismissed for getting pregnant.

She had fallen in love with a soldier; "Disgracing the uniform we all wear," proclaims the head nurse. Regulations are regulations. Lt. Henry is good friends with Major Rinaldi (Adolphe Menjou), who is also a surgeon. The two men drink and visit brothels together. Rinaldi happens to like English Nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes), but early on, after she is introduced to Henry, she and the young lieutenant are greatly attracted to each other. They become lovers right away and just before Henry has to return to the front. Meanwhile Rinaldi uses his influence to have Barkley transferred to Milan. Just before the shelling begins on the battlefront, we see the Italian soldiers eating their rations of bread, cheese, and pasta . . . and even wine. While the men are eating an Austrian shell scores a direct hit, wounding Henry in the right knee and foot. Henry is removed to the military hospital in Milan where Barkley is stationed. Their love affair resumes, but because the Italian Chaplain (Jack La Rue) knows that they are not married, he conducts a proxy marriage (not in the book, however).

Later the hospital head nurse, after catching Henry with his hidden liquor bottles under the mattress, reports him to authorities who deem him healthy enough to revisit the front. While Henry is thus away, Rinaldi, who has censorship authority, censures the letters of both Barkley and Henry because he feels that it is wrong for the lieutenant to "lose his head over a woman." The soldier and the nurse lose contact. Meanwhile a great Austrian and German offensive has succeeded in breaking through the Italian defensive line at Caporetto (October 1917), and the Italians are in retreat. They are constantly blasted with bombs and raked with aerial machine gun fire. Displeased with the Italian high command (perhaps not without reason), Frederic Henry deserts the army. His main goal is to link up with Catherine somehow. He meets up with Catherine's best friend, Nurse Helen Ferguson (Mary Philips) and is genuinely surprised when she unenthusiastically tells him that Catherine is pregnant. But Frederic still does not know where she is located. And the Italian police (carabinieri) are still searching for him.

Events are fast-forwarded because a newspaper headline reads, "Italian Armies Successful in Great Piave Offensive." (This event occurred in June 1918.) Eventually Henry meets up with Major Rinaldi, who relents and shows compassion when Henry tells him that Catherine is with child. He gives Henry Catherine's location (Brissago, Switzerland) and cash to help him. Time is fast-forwarded to November 1918, as a newspaper headline now reads, "L'Austria Capitola" ("Austria Capitulates"). Now the scene inter-cuts with Catherine's most difficult childbirth event in the Swiss hospital. Her baby boy is stillborn, and her health is failing. Soaked with rain Frederic arrives in the hospital in time to share some words with Catherine. Their last moments are tender ones. He lifts her dead body as doves fly and the church bells ring, proclaiming that the Armistice has ended the Great War. "Peace," Frederic utters. Hemingway's novel actually ends during the middle of 1918, at the height of the great German offensives on the Western front.

And in the novel Frederic Henry dejectedly leaves the Swiss hospital and walks out into the rain. All in all, the movie is a very successful tearjerker, and is better than the 1957 version, although the latter's cinematography is at a high level, and even though Cooper is over a foot taller than the diminutive Hayes. Director Frank Borzage, who began filming in 1913, was the first person in Hollywood history to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (Seventh Heaven, 1929). He won again in 1931 for "Bad Girl." Borzage's version of "A Farewell to Arms" belongs among the top 15 or 20 movies of 1932 even though his adaptation is loose. His well-known trademark was in identifying the feelings of young lovers in the face of intense trial, as in wartime. His montages here, like the retreat from Caporetto and Henry's twenty mile-trek to Switzerland through storms, are both expertly done. Charles Lang won the Academy Award for Cinematography. The acting is fine all the way around although Hayes sometimes overacts.

Both Adolphe Menjou and Jack La Rue, who have French surnames, do very well acting as Italians. Menjou as Rinaldi is the worldly one; La Rue as the priest prays for the end of suffering and war's end. Gary Cooper was destined to win the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: Sergeant York (1940) and High Noon (1952). (PS: I also reviewed the 1957 version of "A Farewell to Arms" for IMDb on 2 April 2014.) Was the above review useful to you? Page 1 of 5: A Farewell to Arms Characters - eNotes.com A Farewell to Arms Characters link Link Lieutenant Frederic Henry Lieutenant Frederic Henry, an American who has volunteered to serve with an Italian ambulance unit during World War I. Like his Italian companions, he enjoys drinking, trying to treat the war as a joke, and (it is implied) visiting brothels. Before the beginning of a big offensive, he meets Catherine Barkley, one of a group of British nurses assigned to staff a hospital unit.

Henry begins the prelude to an affair with her but is interrupted by having to go to the front during the offensive; he is wounded, has an operation on his knee, and is sent to recuperate in Milan, where he again meets Miss Barkley, falls in love with her, and sleeps with her in his hospital room. When Henry returns to the front, he knows Catherine is pregnant. In the retreat from Caporetto, Henry is seized at a bridge across the Tagliamento River and realizes he is about to be executed for deserting his troops. He escapes by swimming the river. At Stresa, he rejoins Catherine and, before he can be arrested for desertion, the two lovers row across Lake Como to Switzerland. For a few months, they live happily at an inn near Montreux—hiking, reading, and discussing American sights (such as Niagara Falls, the stockyards, and the Golden Gate) that Catherine must see after the war. Catherine is to have her baby in a hospital. Her stillborn son is delivered by Caesarian section; that same night, Catherine dies. Lieutenant Henry walks back to his hotel through darkness and rain.

As developed by Hemingway, Henry is a protagonist who is sensitive to the horrors and beauties of life and war. Many of his reactions are subtly left for the reader to supply. At the end of the novel, for example, Henry feels sorrow and pity for the dead baby strangled by the umbilical cord, but the full, unbearable weight of Catherine’s death falls upon the reader. Catherine Barkley Catherine Barkley, the nurse whom Frederic Henry nicknames “Cat.” She had been engaged to a childhood sweetheart killed at the Somme. When she falls in love with Henry, she gives herself freely to him. Although they both want to be married, she decides the ceremony would not be a proper one while she is pregnant; she feels they are already married. Catherine seems neither a deep thinker nor a very complex person, but she enjoys life, especially good food, drink, and love. She has a premonition that she will die in the rain; the premonition is tragically fulfilled at the hospital in Lausanne. Lieutenant Rinaldi Lieutenant Rinaldi (rih-NAHL-dee), Frederick Henry’s jokingly cynical friend. Over many bottles, they share their experiences and feelings.

Although he denies it, Rinaldi is a master of the art of priest-baiting. He is very fond of girls, but he teases Henry about Catherine, calling her a “cool goddess.” The Priest The Priest, a young man who blushes easily but manages to survive the oaths and obscenities of the soldiers. He hates the war and its horrors. Piani Piani (PYAH-nee), a big Italian soldier who sticks by Henry in the retreat from Caporetto after the others in the unit have been killed or have deserted. With other Italian soldiers he can be tough, but with Henry he is gentle and tolerant of what men suffer in wartime. Helen Ferguson Helen Ferguson, a Scottish nurse who is Catherine Barkley’s companion when Frederic Henry arrives in Stresa. She is harsh with him because of his affair with Catherine. Count Greffi Count Greffi, ninety-four years old, a former diplomat with whom Frederic Henry plays billiards at Stresa. A gentle cynic, he says that men do not become wise as they grow old; they merely become more careful.

Ettore Moretti Ettore Moretti (EHT-toh-ray moh-REHT-tee), an Italian from San Francisco serving in the Italian army. Much decorated, he is a professional hero whom Frederic Henry dislikes and finds boring. More Content: Characters (hide) Catherine Barkley Catherine Barkley Bookmark this page Manage My Reading List Catherine Barkley is a static character in the novel; that is, she does not undergo any major transformation over the course of A Farewell to Arms. Apparently she has done her growing and changing before the story began. Hemingway can therefore "use" Catherine as a foil to Henry and an index of his maturation. She is like a constant in a scientific experiment. Of course, this does not make her any less interesting than Henry, and it certainly makes her no less admirable. She's simply less dynamic. The writer's use of Catherine to contrast dramatically with Henry — to show us just how much learning and growing he has yet to do — begins in the first scene they share together. Henry is still playing childish games: telling her he loves her when he doesn't, for instance. Soon, however, the tables are turned.

Catherine not only resists Henry's advances; she reveals that she knows he has been playing a game. Apparently she has been playing one too: "You don't have to pretend you love me," she tells Henry. "You see I'm not mad . . . " Here Catherine proves wiser than she at first appeared — wiser in the ways of the world so far than the easily deceived Henry. Indeed, the latter may be attracted to Catherine precisely because of her aura of hard-earned maturity. Well, that and her hair. Catherine rejects organized faith, and yet (unlike the priest-baiting officers at the front) she is no nihilist. She lives by a definite, unshakeable value system, and what she values is love. During one of the many nights they spend together in Milan, the couple discusses marriage, which Henry wants but Catherine resists for practical reasons. It would necessitate their separation, she explains — more worldly than he, despite his battlefield experience. She reminds him and us of her having been formally engaged to the soldier who died. Then Catherine tells Henry that she has no religion.

She quickly corrects this statement, however, explaining "You're my religion." Catherine also tells the admitting nurse at the hospital where she goes to give birth at book's end that she lacks a formal religious affiliation of any kind. Henry too calls himself an agnostic, and yet, as virtually anyone would, Henry tries bargaining with God in his desperation at Catherine's impending death. Catherine, on the other hand, retains the courage of her convictions. To the very end, Catherine remains the somewhat stronger of the two. "Just you," she requests of Henry in response to his offer of a priest's visit. Despite everything, love is her religion until the instant she dies. For much of the novel, Catherine is also more developed than Henry as a Hemingway hero, modest and truthful. Note that while Henry tolerates the "professional hero" Ettore Moretti, Catherine dislikes him intensely. "We have heroes too," Catherine says of Moretti, "But usually, darling, they're much quieter." Additionally, Catherine is distressed by the rigged racetrack betting in which Meyers is involved. "I don't like this crooked racing!" she declares.

She suggests to Henry that they bet on a horse they've never heard of, and although it finishes fifth, she feels "so much cleaner." Again, while Henry is tolerant of a certain amount of corruption, Catherine demands purity. The notion of Catherine's special bravery — another of her heroic qualities — is also introduced during the Milan idyll. With characteristic modesty, she suggests she would like to be brave. When Henry naively suggests that "Nothing ever happens to the brave," the more-experienced Catherine counters with the statement, "They die, of course." And Catherine's extraordinary fortitude is very much in evidence during the escape across Lake Maggiore. Despite her fairly advanced pregnancy, she not only travels through the November night in an open boat but also offers to hold the umbrella so it will serve as a sail. She steers and bails and even rows for a while, always maintaining a sense of humor. Significantly, we don't doubt Catherine's bravery and stoicism as she perishes; we have been prepared for it by scene after scene in which she displayed just these qualities. What does surprise is her statement, "It's just a dirty trick," which seems to ally her with the cynical, nihilistic officers in Henry's unit.

Perhaps Catherine has changed over the course of the novel after all. SparkNotes: A Farewell to Arms: Analysis of Major Characters Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs & Symbols Frederic Henry In the sections of the novel in which he describes his experience in the war, Henry portrays himself as a man of duty. He attaches to this understanding of himself no sense of honor, nor does he expect any praise for his service. Even after he has been severely wounded, he discourages Rinaldi from pursuing medals of distinction for him. Time and again, through conversations with men like the priest, Ettore Moretti, and Gino, Henry distances himself from such abstract notions as faith, honor, and patriotism. Concepts such as these mean nothing to him beside such concrete facts of war as the names of the cities in which he has fought and the numbers of decimated streets. Against this bleak backdrop, Henry’s reaction to Catherine Barkley is rather astonishing. The reader understands why Henry responds to the game that Catherine proposes—why he pledges his love to a woman he barely knows: like Rinaldi, he hopes for a night’s simple pleasures.

But an active sex drive does not explain why Henry returns to Catherine—why he continues to swear his love even after Catherine insists that he stop playing. In his fondness for Catherine, Henry reveals a vulnerability usually hidden by his stoicism and masculinity. The quality of the language that Henry uses to describe Catherine’s hair and her presence in bed testifies to the genuine depth of his feelings for her. Furthermore, because he allows Henry to narrate the book, Hemingway is able to suffuse the entire novel with the power and pathos of an elegy: A Farewell to Arms, which Henry narrates after Catherine’s death, confirms his love and his loss. Catherine Barkley Much has been written regarding Hemingway’s portrayal of female characters. With the advent of feminist criticism, readers have become more vocal about their dissatisfaction with Hemingway’s depictions of women, which, according to critics such as Leslie A. Fiedler, tend to fall into one of two categories: overly dominant shrews, like Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises, and overly submissive confections, like Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms.

Hemingway, Fiedler maintains, was at his best dealing with men without women; when he started to involve female characters in his writing, he reverted to uncomplicated stereotypes. A Farewell to Arms certainly supports such a reading: it is easy to see how Catherine’s blissful submission to domesticity, especially at the novel’s end, might rankle contemporary readers for whom lines such as “I’m having a child and that makes me contented not to do anything” suggest a bygone era in which a woman’s work centered around maintaining a home and filling it with children. Still, even though Catherine’s excessive desire to live a lovely life may, at times, make her more archetypal than real, it is unfair to deny her the nuances of her character. Although Catherine alludes to her initial days with Henry as a period when she was slightly “crazy,” she seems perfectly aware of the fact that she and Henry are, at first, playing an elaborate game of seduction. Rather than being swept off her feet by Henry’s declarations of love, she capably draws the line, telling him when she has had enough for the night or reminding him that their budding love is a lie.

In fact, Catherine’s resistance holds out much longer than Henry’s: even after Henry emphatically states that he loves her and that their lives together will be splendid, Catherine exhibits the occasional doubt, telling him that she is sure that dreadful things await them and claiming that she fears having a baby because she has never loved anyone. Privy only to what Catherine says, not to what she thinks, the reader is left to explain these infrequent lapses in her otherwise uncompromised devotion. Her premonition of dreadful things, for instance, may simply be a general alarm about the war-torn world or residual guilt for loving a man other than the fiancé whom she is mourning as the book opens. While the degree to which Catherine is conflicted remains open to debate, her loyalty to Henry does not. She is a loving, dedicated woman whose desire and capacity for a redemptive, otherworldly love makes her the inevitable victim of tragedy. Rinaldi Rinaldi’s character serves an important function in A Farewell to Arms. He dominates an array of minor male characters who embody the kind of virile, competent, and good-natured masculinity that, for better or worse, so much of Hemingway’s fiction celebrates.

Rinaldi is an unbelievable womanizer, professing to be in love with Catherine at the beginning of the novel but claiming soon thereafter to be relieved that he is not, like Henry, saddled with the complicated emotional baggage that the love of a woman entails. Considering Rinaldi’s frequent visits to the local whorehouses, Henry later muses that his friend has most likely succumbed to syphilis. While this registers as an unpleasant end, it is presented with an air of detached likelihood rather than fervent moralizing. It is, in other words, not punishment for a man’s bad behavior but rather the consequence of a man behaving as a man—living large, living boldly, and being true to himself. More Help Characters of A Farewell to Arms | Novel Summaries Analysis --> Characters A Bartolomeo Aymo Aymo is one of Frederic Henry’s ambulance drivers during the Italian army’s retreat. He is also the driver Frederic is closest to. During the retreat, Aymo generously picks up two peasant woman with assurances that he will not rape them. This assurance frightens them even more-they, unfortunately, only recognize the one word of Aymo’s Italian.

It is also Aymo who is mistakenly shot by the Italian rear guard. It is a tragic mistake both for its stupidity and because he was Frederic’s friend. Aymo’s role, then, is as a symbol of innocence killed by the stupidity of war. B Catherine Barkley An English nurse with the Red Cross, Catherine Barkley is introduced to Henry through Rinaldi in Chapter IV. Frederic perceives “Miss Barkley [as] quite tall. She wore what seemed to be a nurse’s uniform, was blonde and had a tawny skin and gray eyes. I thought she was very beautiful.” Rinaldi, on the other hand, calls her a “lovely cool goddess.” These two examples summarize the critical views of Catherine-she is thought to be either a heroine or a sex object. Not surprisingly, Catherine prefers Frederic to Rinaldi and begins a game of love with Frederic. She tells the story of how her fiance had been horribly killed in the battle of the Somme but Frederic doesn’t say anything. “They blew him all to bits,” Catherine tells Frederic, who says nothing. She had imagined something far more picturesque, like a sabre cut, which she would have joyously attended to.

But this is World War I-trenches, mortars, and “bits”-and its horrors are awesome. Catherine reveals, through the tale of her childhood lover’s death, how much more hardened by war she is than Frederic. Certainly, she has known the tragedy more intimately. As a nurse, Catherine is able to transfer herself to the hospital where Frederic is recovering. Then, she flees with him to Switzerland where she dies from internal bleeding resulting from a difficult childbirth. In her death she is the picture of heroism and her statements are full of dark humor. “I’m not afraid. I just hate it,” is one of the final lines, which leaves Frederic quiet and solitary. Catherine is a close examination of femininity in wartime but filtered through the subjective eyes of Frederic. This being the case, any decision about the character of Catherine is also a reflection on Frederic. Even so, Catherine is a representation of women in war, both as the ideal being defended by the army and the ideal sought by the individual soldier.

In response to critics who have reacted negatively to her role, it can be suggested that while Catherine is won by Frederic, becomes pregnant, and then killed in a rather typical manner of a war novel, she also shows a certain assertiveness that is certainly lacking in Frederic Henry. C Bonello Another of Frederic’s drivers, Bonello is a lively sort who is looking forward to champagne at Udine-the end of the retreat. It is Bonello who asks to kill the sergeant that Frederic shot and wounded for not obeying orders. Later, after Aymo is shot, Bonello decides he would rather risk capture by the Germans then be killed by the Italians. D Helen Ferguson Helen is a Scottish nurse with the Red Cross and a friend to Catherine Barkley. She makes it a point to tell Rinaldi that there is a difference between the Scottish and English. However, the translation is not very clear and Rinaldi understands her to mean that she dislikes Catherine. Helen is protective of Catherine in the same way that Rinaldi looks out for Frederic. Helen, like Rinaldi, represents the importance of social ties that become forged in war.

The two characters regret the love of Frederic and Catherine because it disrupts the social network that was making the war bearable. Thus, when Frederic deserts the army and finds Helen and Catherine in Stresa, Helen is angry. She admonishes Frederic for being so irresponsible as to “compromise” and desert Catherine, but she eventually calms down. She eventually blesses the union if only because it is Catherine’s wish. Having assented to the coupling, Helen is left alone. E Gino He is the first of the drivers and mechanics that Frederic meets upon his return to the front. They discuss the war and war tactics generally until Gino begins to patriotically call his country sacred. It is after this that Frederic reveals how uncomfortable the words of honor and glory make him. He thus labels Gino a patriot, meaning, Gino is a naive boy who will not be so quick to defend war once he is in it. F Count Greffi The Count is staying in the same hotel where Frederic and Catherine stop while in Stresa. A very old man and formerly of great political importance, Count Greffi is the clearest representative of tradition and institution in the novel.

Count Greffi, whose ideals were now being questioned and abandoned, helped make that nineteenth-century world which had been the cause of the devastating war. Frederic knew the Count from before the war and understands him to represent all those values, thus, he cannot refuse a game of pool. The Count is another of Frederic’s tutors who wisely tries to impart lessons the priest has already tried to share, though not as concisely. The Count tells Frederic, while he beats him in pool, that a person ought to love one’s fellow citizens, not abstract values. He says that the love of abstract values leads one to a foolish pursuit of illusions. G Mr. Frederic Henry A Farewell to Arms is Frederic Henry’s story of what happened to him during the First World War. Frederic is an American serving the Italian army as an ambulance driver. While in the service of the Italians, he falls in love with an English nurse named Catherine Barkley. He is wounded and sent to a hospital in Milan. Catherine transfers to the same hospital and they spend an idyllic time together as he recovers. Once his wounds have healed, Frederic must return to the front.

Soon after he arrives, the Italian line breaks, and during the retreat from the Germans, he decides he has had enough of the war and deserts rather than be killed by battle police. After reuniting with his love, they flee to Switzerland. Once safely in the neutral nation, they pass the time playing cards until Catherine’s baby is due. Both she and the baby die in childbirth and Frederic is left alone. Frederic Henry’s story reveals his education by various “tutors”: the priest, Rinaldi, Catherine, the mechanics, and the war. Each try to impress upon Frederic a different lesson but he merely reacts to each. For example, the priest tries to persuade Frederic onto a moral and Christian path. In doing so, he extends an invitation to Frederic to visit his family. Frederic accepts, but instead chooses the more typical adventures of an officer on leave-he goes drinking and visits the brothels. He tries to explain his decision to the priest, saying, “we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.” Ultimately, Frederic must learn from his experiences and, thus, his education is self-instructed.

That is, from his beginning as a rootless boy, he gains such experience that even in his position as reactor, he must react to his own collection of experience. It is this that he must finally face in Catherine’s death and which leads him to write it out, like an essay in answer to a test question. It is from this position that his retrospective narration is told. Throughout the novel Frederic maintains his curious outsider status. He is an American who volunteered. “It did not have anything to do with me. It seemed no more dangerous to me myself than war in the movies,” he says early in Chapter VII. Thus, as a foreigner, he finds it possible to observe the Italians without direct involvement, but then he is wounded. He is part of it as much as an ambulance driver is a part of any war. This position, as well as his forced reaction to his various tutors, leads Frederic into his separate relation with the world and this, in turn, affords him the ability to make a separate peace with the war and withdraw his involvement. Still, though he decides this is a possibility for him, there remains the fact that Henry is a reactor to events.

That is, in the key moment that ends his belonging in the Italian army, he is merely risking his life to avoid summary execution. He decides, in his first bold move of the book, to jump into the river rather than face the stupidity of the guards. H Passini Passini is killed in the same mortar attack which wounds Frederic. Passini talks against the war from a very socialist standpoint. He believes that the class controlling the country is stupid, and that is why there is war. Frederic tolerates such troublesome talk out of good humor, but also because he doesn’t disbelieve him. It is after this conversation about politics that the mortar hits. I Luigi Piani Luigi Piani is an ambulance driver under Frederic’s direction when he returns to the front. While of lesser rank, Piani is Frederic’s equal in every other way. Though he allows Frederic to be in charge, it is Piani who finds food, who leads Frederic the right way when they’ve left the ambulances, and who keeps him from being roughed up by the regular troops when they approach the battle police.

Piani knows what is happening so far as the war is concerned, but he can do nothing to protect Frederic as they near the police. Piani is successful in his role as the brains of the group who feeds information to the leader, thereby insuring the group’s survival. It is not his fault that Frederic is such a poor leader. J Priest The chaplain of the Italian army stationed with the forces Frederic serves with, the priest is the subject of mess-hall jokes. He senses that Frederic is sympathetic to the Christian message, and they view each other as friends. He tries to persuade Frederic to spend leave time with his family in Abruzzi so he might have time to reflect and rest from the front. Then, when Frederic is in hospital, the priest comes to visit. This visit causes the clearest moment of insight into the human condition in war, according to Frederic. The topic is invoked because the Priest attributes his fatigue to disgust of the war. Still, nothing is decided, though they both agree that war is the product of lust and not love. K Lt. Rinaldo Rinaldi A surgeon for the Italian Army, Rinaldi is Frederic’s roommate and friend.

He is very protective of Frederic and calls him names full of endearment, for example, often referring to Frederic as “baby.” He even comes to visit Frederic in the hospital and assists in the transfer of Catherine to Milan. He tries to be a good person and strives to be the best surgeon. However, the war is stressful, and he drinks to keep his hands steady. His visits to the brothel eventually give him gonorrhea. Stereotypically, he is the romantic Italian who the novel loses track of in the retreat. L Ralph Simmons Ralph Simmons is an American friend of Frederic who is trying to earn a living as a singer under the name Enrico DelCredo. He seems to have little success. His purpose in the novel is to offer an opposite of Frederic, a kind of alternate self. Ralph truly has no involvement in the war but wants to be Italian, whereas Frederic is involved in the war as an Italian but doesn’t want to be. Frederic goes to Ralph after he makes his escape from the battle police. Ralph lends him some clothes and Frederic goes on his way.

Related titles on this novel: Frederic Henry | A Farewell To Arms Study Guide | Ernest Hemingway | Homework Online A Farewell To Arms Study Guide Tweet jump to: Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver and a lieutenant ("tenente") in the Italian army, is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. The focus of the novel revolves around his love with Catherine Barkley as well as his steady disillusionment with the war. Henry is characterized initially by a sort of detachment from life-though well-disciplined and friendly, he feels as if he has nothing to do with the war. These feelings of detachment are pushed away when Henry falls in love with Catherine and begins to realize the hostile nature of the world. In this way, Henry serves the function of a character who becomes initiated in Hemingway's philosophy of an indifferent universe and man's struggle against it.

Question: Catherine Barkley, Helen Ferguson and Rinaldi are all characters in which World War I novel by Ernest Hemingway?
Answer: A Farewell to Arms